Monthly Archives: June 2014

Star World Championships at Fraglia Vela Malcesine, Lake Garda

Star Sailors from across the world will come together in Malcesine, Italy at Fraglia Vela Malcesine to compete in the 2014 International Star Class World Championship on the infamous waters of Lake Garda from 30 June – 5 July.

90 teams will participate in the 6 race series, all fighting to become the next International Star Class World Champion, one of Sailing’s most prestigious titles. This year the Star Class World Championship regatta’s media coverage will include Virtual Eye tracking and for the first time ever will be accompanied by LIVE online broadcasting and commentary provided by the Star Sailors League.

Anticipation and expectations for this year’s 2014 International Star Class World Championship are high and the competition within the Star fleet has already proven to be fierce with the attendance of over 20 of the International Star Class’s most successful members, making up a total of 15 teams.

Among the Olympic competitors, Torben Grael won Gold Medals in 1996 and 2004 as well as Bronze Medals in 1988 and 2000, Mark Reynolds won Gold Medals in 1992 and 2000 as well as a Silver Medal in 1988, Xavier Rohart won a Bronze Medal in 2004, and Star crew Bruno Prada won a Silver Medal in 2008 and a Bronze Medal in 2012. International Star Class World Champions present at this year’s event include skippers Roberto Benamati (ITA), Torben Grael (BRA), Alex Hagen (GER), Mark Reynolds (USA), Xavier Rohart (FRA), and George Szabo (USA), as well as crew Bruno Prada (BRA).

The Star Sailors League’s live Virtual Eye with broadcasting and commentary is scheduled to begin tomorrow, Monday June 30, at 12:20 (CET) just before the 12:30 Start of Race 1 of the 2014 International Star Class World Championship. Visit live.starsailors.com

Lars Grael, International Star Class Yacht Racing Association President: “We are going to have a very nice event with 90 Stars. We’re going to have quantity of boats and quality, lots of famous sailors, many World Champions, European, North American, South American Champions of the Silver Star, and a very nice place, which is a paradise, Lake Garda. The Championship so far has been very well organized so we have very good expectations about the Championship.”

37th edition of the Round Texel race

The 37th edition of the Round Texel, Saturday 28th June, was a day with bright sunshine, perfect sailing conditions, almost 300 boats and around 18.000 spectators spread out over the Dutch island. The overall winners of this challenging sailing spectacle: Nacra 17 sailors Visser and Van der Velden. The duo represents Aruba in the Olympic Nacra 17 class. This year they can add the title ‘Round- Texel winner 2014’ to their names.

Texel Rating – Finishing first does not always mean winning

The honour of ‘first finisher’ of the Round Texel last Saturday went to the team of Peter Vink and Mischa de Munck. On a Nacra 20 catamaran with modified daggers and rudders they ‘flew’ over the water. But the Round Texel is sailed in accordance with the so-called Texel Rating handicap system. That is a value used to calculate your adjusted time, so different types of cats can compete with each other. Bigger and smaller cats. Vink and De Munck sailed with a rating of 87, while the winner was expected to come from the smaller Formula 18 cats or the Olympic Nacra 17 class. And Visser and Van der Velden lived up to that expectation.

Boosted along by cheering crowds at Oudeschild

Last year, Visser and Van der Velden sailed all the way to Texel from Scheveningen, prior to the start of the Round Texel 2013. Thijs Visser was still a member of the Nacra 17 Dutch Olympic team and Van der Velden was hoping to become a member of the Talent-team. However, things worked out differently. Representing Aruba, they currently sail together in an Olympic Nacra 17. During the WC in Santander (September 2014) their goal is to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Thijs Visser, shortly after arriving on the beach: “We are really happy with how we have sailed. I’ve come second four times now and it would be so cool if we could win the Round this year. Many people are already congratulating us… but you’re never really sure until it’s confirmed by the Race Management!” said Visser.

End results of the Round Texel 2014

The somewhat premature congratulations proved to be right. The Nacra 17 the expected winner, and Visser and Van der Velden extremely proud of their victory in one of the Netherlands’ most challenging sailing races.

Extreme Sailing Series™ 2014 Act 4, Saint Petersburg, Russia

After four days and 22 races, Act 4 of the Extreme Sailing Series™ in Saint Petersburg presented by Land Rover came down to an edge-of-the-seat final race shoot out, with five teams gunning for the podium and no room for error. The game of Russian roulette between The Wave, Muscat and Alinghi continued until the final double pointer, but the Omani team needed seven boats between them to overhaul the Swiss – which proved too tall an order for Leigh McMillan, and Alinghi comfortably took their third Act win of the season.

With the Series now at the halfway mark, helmsman Morgan Larson has already turned his attentions towards the bigger picture: “It’s nice to put a little stamp on our win and to let the guys know that we’re here to try and win the whole Series this time. The team is working well together and we finally feel confident that we can do it. Saying that, the heat is on, some teams are working really hard and we know that we’ll have to step up if we want to stay head.”

Hoping the Omani team would trip up and waiting in the wings to pounce for second place was Emirates Team New Zealand – and they almost did – until a last minute roll of the dice by Leigh McMillan and the team paid off, and a fifth place in the final race was enough for the boat flying the colours of Oman to take second place. But more importantly, keeping them in touch with Alinghi on the overall season leaderboard. Tactician Sarah Ayton – who was also awarded the Land Rover ‘Above and Beyond’ award this week, for inspiring the next generation through her ongoing engagement with young aspiring sailors at every Act this year – talked through the strategy: “When you are in that position you need to do something and we needed to attack. We took the split at the gate, we saw the opportunity, took it and it came good for us. You make a choice, you either follow or you make an attack and do something slightly different. We’re happy and pleased with the result. It’s been a tough regatta, but the standard of the fleet is really creeping up and the Emirates Team New Zealand boys did really well and obviously Alinghi were fantastic. The game is definitely raising.”

Six short, sharp races were sailed on the final day, and by close of play the teams were jostling in the best conditions of the week, with 10 knots of breeze and 15 knot gusts, that swept over the top of the surrounding buildings on the Palace Embankment, in what is perhaps one of the most picturesque backdrops the high-performance Extreme 40s have ever raced in.

The starts were vital as the teams moved through the gears – get it right and reap the benefits; pull the trigger too early and get punished hard, as J.P. Morgan BAR found out in the final race. The team came hurtling into the line – skimming the committee boat and giving race management a fright en route – and were given a restart penalty, which saw their podium ambitions dashed. But the British team, led by Olympic legend Ben Ainslie, was happy to settle for fourth, their best result of the season to date. “It’s certainly a better result than the previous events, and we’re improving which is great. I think we’re slowly starting to understand a bit more about this type of racing, the demands and how to be successful.” Looking ahead to the next Act and the UK round of the Series, Ainslie continued: “It will be great to sail on British waters. It’s not often I get to do that and get that opportunity so I’m really excited about that.”

RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup in Spain

Racing at the RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup finished today with the tensest of conclusions, two boats tied going into the final race and the ultimate result of the regatta going right to the wire.

Three races were held, once again in brilliant sunshine and a slowly building, but very shifty westerly breeze blowing off the Andalucian coast.

Artemis Racing has had ‘zero to hero’ tendencies this week and at the end of the regatta had scored the most race wins – three out of the 11 races held. Torbjörn Törnqvist’s crew, with British multiple Olympic medallist Iain Percy calling tactics, won today’s opening race, but then suffered a badly wrapped spinnaker in the second that caused them to finish in last place, dropping them off the podium. They ultimately finished fifth overall.

Star performer of the day was unquestionably Valentin Zavadnikov and Leonid Lebedev’s Synergy Russian Sailing Team, with Lebedev behind the wheel today. Synergy won the last two races as the breeze increased to more than 20 knots for the final one.

“There is a rhythm to what’s been happening out there and today we were able to use that because we had reasonably good starts,” said the team’s American tactician Ed Baird. “When we could get off the line clean and just play our own game, we could use the shift pattern. When you get behind right away then someone always controls where you go and that doesn’t work out as well.”

Baird, the 32nd America’s Cup winning helmsman, called the substantial shifts to perfection making sure Synergy was not only in the right place but had room to manoeuvre when the change in wind occurred. “It worked out. The guys sailed the boat really well today.”

However in the end in the shifty winds off Sotogrande it was not the star performer but the most consistent that won the regatta. In this respect the crew that shone was Bronenosec, skippered for this regatta by Slovenian RC44 grand master Igor Lah. Through 11 races in an 11 boat fleet, she never finished lower than sixth.

“This was a win for Bronenosec,” said Lah. “The guys did a really great job. I just tried to help a little bit.” Lah, Bronenosec’s stand-in helmsman, is the reigning RC44 World Champion with his own boat Team Ceeref, but, aside from this regatta, is having a year out of the class.

As to the key to their success, Lah commented: “We just tried to keep it simple – nothing else and to avoid the crowd.It paid off. It was really nice conditions today. A little bit shifty, but not too much. I really love it when it is 20+ knots downwind. Flying downwind today was really cool.”

Sadly the team to lose out to the forceful Russians was John Bassadone’s Peninsula Petroleum that had a strong start to the week. Having taken over the series leader’s ‘golden wheels’ going into this regatta, the local heroes were viewed as favourites on their home waters.

Going into the final race, Peninsula Petroleum and Bronenosec were tied on points and on the first beat it became evident that, rather than match race each other, they were going to sail their own races. Bassadone’s team headed out to the extreme left while Bronenosec took the extreme right. Ultimately Lah’s team came home third to the local boat’s sixth – enough to secure Bronenosec the regatta win.

“I don’t think that made the difference,” said Bassadone of the split. “At one point going up the first beat we were ahead of Synergy – and they won the race – but that’s how it has been. We watched where they [Bronenosec] were, but it was so shifty that you needed to go the right way.”

Bronenosec’s tactician Michele Ivaldi agreed: “The reality was during the race there were four lead changes. We kept pushing for every metre and until the last cross downwind we didn’t put it to bed. It was fantastic.”

Apart from the result, Bassadone said he was pleased with the way the RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup had gone. “It has been brilliant. The organisers have done a very good job and it has been a real success. We are very happy and from what I hear everybody else has had a good time. Puerto Sotogrande would be happy to have us back -I hope soon, maybe in 2016.”

However the good news for Bassadone is that in the overall results, Peninsula Petroleum remains overall leaders in the RC44 Championship Tour fleet racing, now that the discards have kicked in after three regattas. She remains on three points joint with Chris Bake’s Team Aqua and with Synergy Russian Sailing Team on five.

From here the RC44 moves on to its World Championship, taking place in Marstrand, Sweden over 13th-17th August.

A Class Cat European Championships at Lake Hourtin, Bordeaux, France

Australian Glenn Ashby won the Open European Championship for the Int A Class catamarans sailed at Cercle Voile Bordeaux with a crushing nine race wins, not sailing the final race. Jason Waterhouse was 2nd and Steve Brewin 3rd to make it a clean sweep for the Aussies.

Sandro Caviezel of Switzerland finished fourth and takes the A Class European crown. Matthias Ditez was second European finishing in seventh overall.

America’s Cup skipper, Dean Barker (NZL) placed eighth overall in the 105 boat fleet, a very creditable performance in just his second regatta in the class, and his first since the introduction of foiling.

RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup in Spain

Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio and his race management team made up for yesterday’s single race by successfully holding four on the penultimate day of the RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup.

Racing was held in conditions which Nico Poons, skipper of Charisma, described as: “quite kinky! quite difficult with the shifts.” But by the final race the wind was up to 20 knots and a sharp chop made for an exhilarating last blast for the crews.

The opening two races where held in a light southerly wind from Gibraltar and it was appropriate that John Bassadone’s Peninsula Petroleum team, heralding from the nearby ‘Rock’, came out on top in the first – a good comeback after finishing last yesterday.

“John opened the window somewhere,”quipped Peninsula Petroleum’s Italian tactician Vasco Vascotto of the wind conditions. “Today the most important thing was that we had very good starts, which didn’t happen yesterday when we were over the line early. It is very nice to show that we are able to recover after a bad day – that is very important for our future.”

The ‘Gibraltar’ breeze began to fade during race two when it was the turn of Bronenosec to take the win ahead of Team Nika. Slovenian Igor Lah, stand-in skipper aboard the light blue hulled RC44 this week, praised his crew, including his long term Italian tactician Michele Ivaldi. “If the teamwork is perfect, then it is easy to steer. We made one or two bad starts today, which made it a little bit hard to get back. We were always trying to be fifth or better – that was our goal.”

After a break, conveniently around lunchtime, the wind died before filling in from the west, the same very shifty offshore breeze of the first two days of this regatta.

“The third and the fourth race were in fast conditions,” continued Lah. “It is always nice to sail in 20 knots, because then the boat is just flying and downwind it was great. That is why we do it! It is sometimes hard to steer, because it is a pretty tight range where you can sail the optimum way, and sometimes it is on the edge.”

In the offshore breeze there were plenty of opportunities, particularly on the upwinds. The first to make use of this was Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing. “We were about third or fourth and we plugged out a bit further left,” explained their multiple Olympic medallist tactician Iain Percy of their race three win. “But it has been a very difficult day, the wind has been all over the place – every point of the compass. When the wind came in from the west, it was fun racing and we got one right and one wrong.”

After their win, in race four Artemis Racing came home a lowly ninth, dropping them from third to fourth overall. “We had a tough last one. The breeze was up and the boats were flying. All the teams were getting pretty tired by the end, so people were making mistakes. We are pretty close, in the hunt,” concluded Percy.

The final race was won by Kirill Podlsky’s Gazprom Youth Sailing Challenge with a massive margin. “It was nice to get a big win,” said tactician Cameron Dunn. “The second beat fell into our hands – we came around [the leeward gate] in a massive right shift and as we got to the layline we got a massive left one. That doesn’t happen often.”

But the team was more proud of their second in race one. “It wasn’t the team’s favoured conditions and we changed the rig set-up and were aggressive with the moding and the guys worked really nicely together. They showed a bit of the stuff they’ve learned. We hung in there, didn’t make any mistakes and chipped our way through to second.”

After a slow start, the new Dutch team, Charisma, with crew that includes London 2012 Olympic Laser gold medallist Tom Slingsby as tactician and British Finn World Champion Giles Scott, had a better day today and have pulled up to eighth place.

Owner Nico Poons says they are still playing catch-up. “We’ve had to change the rigging and we have more to do to the boat, but when we put those things in place, we are confident we will be able to catch up and get into the top five. We’re up against boats that have been here for years, with the best sailors. My boys have a good reputation, but we’re still a new team.”

At the end of play, and with seven races now sailed, it remains close at the top. Peninsula Petroleum has managed to pull out a three point lead over Igor Lah’s team on board Bronenosec, with Gazprom Youth Sailing Challenge now up to third, five points behind their compatriots.

The final day of racing on Sunday is scheduled to start at 1100 hrs Follow all the action on the water blow by blow via the live race blog at www.rc44.com

Bill Hardesty’s team on Line Honors – Photo – Sharon Green / New York Yacht Club

2014 Etchells World Championship at New York Yacht Club, Newport RI

Consistency is king and Bill Hardesty and crew of Stephanie Roble, Taylor Canfield and Marcus Eagan have earned the 2014 Etchells World Championship by sticking to a steady plan for success.

The plan was formulated 6 months ago, when Hardesty put together his young team consisting of Match Race World Champion Taylor Canfield and top women’s match racer Stephanie Roble—25-year-olds eager to dedicate themselves to a worthy goal. Add in top trimmer Marcus Eagan and the team was complete.

After a tough series in Miami last winter, Hardesty made the decision to train in his home waters of San Diego where he had top talent and similar conditions to the worlds venue in Newport. “Tom Carruthers, Vince Brun and Bruce Nelson helped us up our game through sail testing and boat tuning,” Hardesty said. But they didn’t focus solely on boat speed. “We worked on evaluating risk management to make good decisions, define it, buy into it and follow through; that all came together at this regatta and helped with our consistency.”

Hardesty further commented that having three elite match racers on board “gave us an advantage at the start through our time and distance timing and laylines, which made starting easier and more comfortable. We only had one bad start, that was the race we finished 20th.”

Commenting on his third Etchells World title, Hardesty said: “This was one of the toughest to win; the level of sailing was at its highest. But it’s very exciting. I love the class, I love the boat.”

Winning the last race was Peter Duncan, who had local ties. “We didn’t sail a particularly great series,” said Duncan. “Our expectations were certainly higher, so this was great to end on a high note, which is better than the alternative.” Duncan’s crew included former world champion Jud Smith and Thomas Blackwell.

A Class Cat Europeans at Lake Hourtin, France

Three more races were held on Lake Hourtin, near Bordeaux on Friday in mixed conditions. The breeze for the first race barely got above 4-5 knots, top rider and light wind specialist Matthias Dietz (GER) won taking a bullet from Australian world champion Glenn Ashby, who proceded to sail into an unbeatable position by winning the last two races.

The second and third races had slightly more breeze and good trapezing conditions upwind and pressure for the downwind legs with some going for foiling in the Silver fleet too.

Steve Brewin (AUS) had two RDG (Redress Given) to climb back up to the 3rd place overall after scoring 5th, 2nd & 2nd on the water.

Sandro Caviezel (SUI) continued his consistent results with 3rd & 4th for the last two races, but got a 35th in the 4 – 5knots first race. Sandro is first European lying in 4th place overall.

Australian Jason Waterhouse also got caught offguard in the calm with a 24th but later recovered with 5th & 5th.

Kiwi AC skipper Dean Barker also dropped places overall after two 17th places in the light stuff. He now sits in 10th overall.

Saturday a final 10th race is scheduled for 1100 hrs local with Glenn Ashby virtually crowned European Champion.

The Foiling Week is a new event dedicated to amazing foiling boats, their designers, builders and athletes, taking place across Lake Garda, Italy in July 2014.

The idea of bringing together the sailors, designers and builders involved in foiling was born in September 2013. The foiling week gathered consent well beyond expectations. Now, less than ten months from conception, the foiling week is ready to take off on Friday July, 4th.

6 days of racing, 3 days of forums and round tables, 2 locations, nearly 100 sailors on the water, more than 20 of the leading designers, builders and sailors speaking at the conference, all types of sailing hydrofoil seen so far (and yet to be seen) in the water.

At the forum and on water over 7 languages are spoken. Tens of nations scattered across 5 continents are represented.

Anyone who has a flying boat is invited to participate in the mixed races and at the speed trials: the intent is to gather all types of hydrofoil sailing boats: TFW’s motto is “the third mode of sailing”: first was displacement, then planing and now foiling.

It is a race, but for once the spirit is that of a ‘meeting’: the goal is to share and compare. In TFW Mixed Fleet Contest all the foilers (from the kite to the 32-foot catamaran, plus Moths and several prototypes) will compete on the same course which is designed to showcase the characteristics of speed and performance of these boats. The format is that of an endurance race: the boats will run on the course for an hour.

The panel of names on stage at the TFW Forum represents the best of technical and practical foiling today. Attending conferences and round tables will give a unique insight: for three mornings you can listen and talk with all the foiling gurus.

During the foiling week the TFW Awards will be presented for the categories ‘Designer, Boat and Sailor’. The awards will be assigned by the speakers and the participants to the forum for the categories ‘Boat and Designer’, while the racing competitors will vote for their fellow sailors.

See www.foilingweek.com for progamme, forum agenda, race courses, biographies and the boards of some of the boats.

RC44 Championship – Puerto Sotogrande Cup in Spain

For day three of the RC44 Puerto Sotogrande Cup, the Mediterranean laid on different conditions to the first two days. While the sun remained, there was initially no wind and when it did fill in, it was blowing down the coast, from the northeast, rather than the westerly offshore breeze of the first two days.

Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio pulled the rabbit out of the hat at around 1300 hrs local time, when the wind briefly built to around 8 knots, allowing him to squeeze in one race. But even towards the end of that, the wind was dying and failed to return for the rest of the afternoon. At 1600 hrs the eminent PRO terminated racing for the day.

America’s Cup winning helmsman Ed Baird, tactician on second placed Synergy Russian Sailing Team, described today’s conditions: “It was pretty challenging, because there was a very light breeze in the first place and the current choice went against the wind choice. It was a case of “which one shall we put more faith in?” The left was favoured in terms of the current, but in the event the breeze also went left, doubly favouring those on this side of the course for the first beat.”

In the light conditions Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika, on which circuit founder Russell Coutts is calling tactics, started well at the committee boat end of the line. Nika excelled up the first beat, gaining on the left in the latter stages, to lead around the top mark. Along with Team Aqua, she then extended away around the rest of the course, the two boats comfortably claiming first and second place as great separation developed generally across the fleet.

“Pre-race the wind seemed to be set in and fairly stable,” recounted Team Aqua owner, Chris Bake. “The first windward leg we were fairly well positioned. We had a fairly dramatic left hand wind shift, and we were on the left side, heading towards the mark, so some of boats to the right of us got very strong. But we held our course, sailed the boat clean and managed to get second around the windward mark and more or less stayed in that position.”

While Team Nika won, having held ninth place overall at the start of the day, conversely yesterday’s overall race leader, John Bassadone’s Peninsula Petroleum, finished last today. She was over the start line early, along with Gazprom Youth and Charisma. Slow to return, this left the local boat trailing the fleet around the race course and on this circuit, where there are no discards, this was the poor result Bassadone and his Italian tactician Vasco Vascotto managed to avoid yesterday so successfully.

After today’s performance, Peninsula Petroleum has dropped to third place, tied on points with Team Aqua, while two Russian boats now lead – Bronenosec Sailing Team, helmed by Igor Lah, lying just one point ahead of Valentin Zavadnikov and Leonid Lebedev’s Synergy Russian Sailing Team.

After winning yesterday’s final race, Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing came home a solid fourth in today’s one race and now holds fifth place.

“It feels like we’re in the Caribbean,” said Törnqvist as he came ashore in Sotogrande. “Yesterday was great, with a good wind and interesting breeze. The racing has been good. You can see that on the score board: The first five are within four points, which is nothing.”

Three races are scheduled for Saturday with the first warning signal scheduled for 1130 hrs local time. Sadly the forecast indicates that it could be another light day. Follow all the action on the water blow by blow via the live race blog at www.rc44.com